Monday, August 31, 2009

Three people posed as insurance agents hawking President Obama's health-care reform plan to gain entry to a Long Island home, where they pistol-whipped, shot and robbed two women and a man, authorities said.

Vance Jackson, 46, of Yonkers, and Benjamin Thompson, of Brooklyn, were arraigned yesterday in Central Islip on attempted-murder and burglary charges.

A female accomplice, Natalie Taylor, 26, of Nyack, is expected to be arraigned today. The men were nabbed about a mile from the Huntington crime scene in an SUV, and Taylor was apprehended a few hours later, police said.

Prosecutors said Thompson and Taylor approached a home on Virginia Avenue at around noon Friday, and then began to talk about Obama's policies, while Jackson pushed into the door seeking cash.

Taylor allegedly pistol-whipped one woman, and Thompson shot another in the foot as Jackson led the man upstairs to retrieve some cash.

"When he didn't get enough money, he shot the man twice in the neck, once in the back, and once in the chest," said a Suffolk County prosecutor at the men's arraignment.